Kudos to Congresswoman Barbara Lee, who used to represent me when I lived in Berkeley, Calif., for co-sponsoring a bill that would remove Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress from the U.S. travel and terrorist watch list, which has remained in government intelligence files for decades.

Lee told Black AmericaWeb last week that she couldn't believe Mandela remained on the terrorist watch list more than a decade after apartheid had ended and he was freed from prison for his efforts to recognize the black majority in South Africa as equal citizens.

"It was hard to believe, I was shocked," she said. Lee learned about the problem while visiting South Africa last year.

"This should never have happened," Lee said in the interview. "The ANC should have never been on the watch list. The ANC was a liberation movement against apartheid, and the United States was on the wrong side of history. This makes no sense with regard to our foreign policy."

Even sistergirl and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice thinks Mandela and the ANC should be removed from the list.

"I really do hope that we can remove these restrictions on the ANC," Rice told a Senate committee recently. "This is a country with which we have now excellent relations, South Africa," Rice said. "But it is really a rather embarrassing matter that I still have to waive in my own counterpart, the foreign minister of South Africa, not to mention the great leader Nelson Mandela."

The ANC was banned in 1960 by the South African government, and the ANC leadership was forced to go underground or into exile. In 1964, Mandela and seven others were convicted and imprisoned for life for their leadership in opposing apartheid.

The South African ban on the ANC was lifted in 1990, and Mandela was released from prison on February 11, 1990.

Between 1990 and 1994, the ANC negotiated with the South African government for black enfranchisement and an end to apartheid, the results of which were the birth of a multiracial, multiparty democracy in South Africa.

The ANC became a registered political party in 1994. Winning more than 60 percent of the presidential vote, Mandela was inaugurated as president on May 10, 1994.

Mandela, who has since left office, will celebrate his 90th birthday in June.

Why do you think the U.S. shut Mandela out of the country in the first place? And why has it taken so long to get him off the watch list?

[size=14pt]Rice embarrassed by Mandela’s terrorist status in the US[/size]Nelson Mandela, the historic leader of the African National Congress (ANC), and his political party are still black-listed by the American authorities.Friday 11 April 2008, by F. G.

During the apartheid era, the political party which now governs South Africa was considered a terrorist group.

A law to put an end to this situation, qualified as "embarrassing" by the US Secretary of State this Wednesday, Condoleeza Rice, will soon be effective.

On Wednesday, the US secretary of state said that although South Africa and the US now enjoy excellent relations, it is rather “embarrassing” that she still has to intervene personally to allow the US authorities permit her counterpart, the foreign minister of South Africa or even the “great leader, Nelson Mandela” into the United States.

Freedom of movement of members of African National Congress (ANC), now the South African Government, is still restricted on American soil. The ANC was considered a terrorist group in the United States during the Apartheid era.

Embarrassing and archaic.

The Secretary of State also strongly supported the Foreign Affairs commission of the Senate that introduced a bill last week, which aims to remove these restrictions.

The ANC and it’s leaders will be cleared from the US black-list as soon as the law is passed. No precise date has been given so far.

The State Department is expected to support this outdated law, some 16 years after the end of Apartheid, 15 years after Nelson Mandela received the Nobel Prize for Peace and and 14 years after heading the South Africa executive.